Completed Event: Men's Swimming & Diving at Penn on January 9, 2026 , Loss , 116, to, 184
Final
Men's Swimming & Diving
at Penn
116
184
Swimming Winter Training Trip Blog
12/13/2010 8:46:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving, Women's Swimming & Diving
The Dartmouth men's and women's swimming teams are spending two weeks in St. Croix and Mayaguez, Puerto Rico for their annual winter training trip. They will also provides updates when they can, so that family, friends and fans can keep up with what they are doing.
Day 1
Day one was a day of sleep. The men's team went bowling the night before, aware that we wouldn't get to sleep anyways. Afterwards, everyone packed quickly and went down to the busses, eyes half closed, at 3 a.m.
Five minutes into the bus ride to Logan, everyone was asleep, many snoring. Once at Logan, we lethargically made it through security to our gate, where many fell asleep again.
The direct flight to San Juan was a treat. Once in San Juan we took two bus trips to the hotel before everyone was settled in and ready for afternoon practice. The natatorium in Puerto Rico was ready for our arrival and afternoon practice was a good start to a hard working training trip. A bountiful dinner at Pondarosa was the perfect ending to a long travel day. The first ones to fall asleep at 7 p.m. were made fun of, but in the end, everyone was asleep before 9. A good day of rest for a long trip to come.
- Nick Burford (Leawood, Kan.) '14
Day 2
This morning, the team met at 5:30 in the hotel lobby. After a few logistical difficulties, aka, the bus didn't come, we all made it to the pool and were in the water by about 6:20. We got out of practice in shifts by last name alphabetically to catch our flights to St. Croix. Last names A-C got out after round 1 of 4 of the main set, and understandably, we received death stares from those with less fortunate last names.
We flew to St. Croix on planes with a 10-person capacity. Even though we were told the planes would be small, the '14s were still a bit surprised at their size. In another stroke of luck I got to be "co-pilot" on the flight to St. Croix, which just means I rode next to the pilot, felt important, and got a really great view.
The flight was definitely a very different experience than flying on the large commercial jets most of us are used to: at the lower altitudes, we could see a lot of detail in the water and shorelines of the islands we flew over. It was only a 35-minute flight, so I promised myself I would stay awake the whole way, but starting nodding off about halfway through. Between the warm air and the white noise, everyone else on my flight, save the pilot of course, was completely passed out about 15 minutes in the air.
After everyone arrived in St. Croix, we all piled onto a couple buses and drove to get food at Subway and McDonald's. After everyone was fed and a bit happier, we headed to the condos. I must say, we are a very spoiled bunch, because the condos are very nice and quite literally on the beach.
We dropped our stuff off in our rooms, then piled everyone back onto one bus to head to the beach for an open water swim led by Bob Halk ('94).
From his kayak, he led us on a 3-part swim: first, out to the reef, then along it, then back to shore. The reef is about 800 yards from shore and as we swam along it, we could clearly see fish at the bottom and even a sunken sailboat. We all came back to shore with a little bit more color and a lot of chaffing. Fortunately, the Halks welcomed the team into their beautiful waterfront home for a delicious dinner at the end of our long, fun and exhausting day. At the end of the meal, Bob sat us down to tell us two stories: the first one quite serious, and the second quite humorous.
For a good laugh, he told us about one of his shenanigans from his days at Dartmouth. The college's e-mail system, Blitz, was fairly new at the time and the automatic password for a new account was the person's birthday. Bob, being the kind fellow he is, took the liberty of setting up his coach's unused blitz account and promptly sent a message to the team announcing the engagement of two of the swim coaches. To this day, the coach doesn't know who did it.
On a more serious note, he told us about how four of the upperclassman on one of his training trips went out to eat at a local restaurant. Upon asking for their bill, they found out a man from another table had paid for their entire meal. When they went over to talk to the man, he said he was a Dartmouth alumni and wanted to cover their meal when he saw the Dartmouth Swimming shirts they were all wearing. In this same spirit, Bob said he will always welcome the Dartmouth team into his home whenever we come to the islands. I think we all felt extremely privileged and lucky as we were reminded, once again, that we are all part of an exciting and special Dartmouth community. After dinner, we all headed back to the condos to get a good night's sleep in preparation for a tough day of training.
- Arenne Clark (Carlisle, Pa.) '14
|
View from the swimming team's condos in St. Croix. |
Day 3
After our day of traveling and dinner at Bob Halk's house, we began our first full day on St. Croix. We loaded onto the bus for practice still a bit groggy and debating which practice we would have to do that morning, although the upperclassmen seemed to have a pretty good idea of which set we would do.
We had started out with the dreaded ladder set. I chose to go on the 1:20 base, which I manage to hold for the entire set. Other people were dropping into slower bases as the set progressed. At the 600, I was starting to think to myself "Wow - this is a ridiculously long set". It was then that I realized that we weren't halfway. I did the math in my head and realized that the set itself was 7500 and in order for us to be halfway we needed to be 250 into the 900.
We finished the 1000 and headed back down the ladder starting with an 800 then a 600. I cannot tell you just how happy I was when we finished that last 200. My arms were burning and my shoulders and back were all knotted up but we still had weights. I had a bit of a freshman fail, and had to go back to the condos in the van with Jim to get my sneakers for dry land. We drove to Flex Gym, which is where we met with the rest of the team.
After the workout we went to the Pueblo grocery store to buy food for our rooms. Luckily, I was only in a three-person room with Christine Kerr (Gainesville, Fla.) '14 and Lindsay Wahl (Pittsford, N.Y.) '11, so shopping wouldn't be difficult. I won't go into specifics of what we bought but we got some food that I'm particularly excited to eat in the upcoming days. After a lunch of deli meat and cheese sandwiches, we changed into our two-pieces and grabbed our towels and sunglasses and walked out onto the beach to soak up the sun. It was amazing. I couldn't possibly imagine what the weather was like in Hanover. All I knew was that here in St. Croix the weather was in the mid-80s and that I wasn't about to complain. I went in the beautiful blue water, tanned, went shell collecting, and listened to music for 2 hours before turning in with Christine, downed a bowl of coffee ice cream, and took a 1 hour nap before we got up for practice.
I wasn't expecting anything too bad for practice since this morning was long and in the end I suppose it wasn't too bad. It was just a typical distance set. The set was descending six sets of a 300, 200, and 100. We got out of the pool at around 8 p.m., and headed back to the condos to make ourselves dinner. As a team, Lindsay, Christine, and I made spaghetti and meat sauce and a spinach salad for dinner. Later, we had some coffee ice cream for dessert. We haven't been on St. Croix for very long, but I know I love it here.
- Kiki Hocheder (Tucson, Ariz.) '14
| Team training on the beach in St. Croix. |
Day 4
Today the team went on a boat ride to Buck Island where we swam around the island and did some snorkeling as well. Possibly the hardest part of the swim at Buck Island was getting out into the deep. With sweat pouring down his face, complemented with an intense feeling of apprehension and fear, Benjamin Feeser (Redgefield, Conn.) struggled to cross the seemingly endless ocean of jagged coral that was littered with sea urchins.
Buck Island is actually an underwater national monument because it is home to such a myriad of fish, coral, and other stuff. We saw tons of fish, some sharks, a couple enormous lobsters and a sea turtle. During the swim, Matt "General Grievous" Harding (Tolland, Conn.) was swimming along minding his own business when all of the sudden, a wave progressed and beached him like a whale on a bed of coral. He was completely helpless, kicking and waving his arms in the air in an attempt to do who knows what.
Everyone knows you can't swim through air but that didn't stop him from trying. As soon as the next wave came, he was freed from the above-ground platform and resumed swimming. The few lucky people that witnessed that event were rolling in the sand laughing their tails off. After the swim, the team headed back to the boats and played around on the beach. The captains let us do some flips off the top of their boats. Will "Dirty" Derdeyn (St. Louis, Mo.) landed a sick one and a half front flip and I did a couple back flips. On the contrary, Senior Mickey Ahern successfully completed ¼ of a gainer, landing hard on his side with his legs spread eagle. He made a complete fool of himself but at least it was good for some laughs from the entire team.
- Dylan Gabel (Alta Loma, Calif.) '14
Day 5
So this morning I woke up with a massive headache and I couldn't tell if it was from last night's hectic endeavors (getting a flat tire, having to transport 60 people with one seven passenger van, and having the key to my condo be lost), or from my nightmare involving Mercedes O'Riley (the lady who gave Jesup a taste of the island flavor).
Oh well I guess I'll never know. Luckily practice this morning was moderately easy minus the fast 400 IM, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back, 100 free and 50 free at the end. Because we had an informational scuba lesson starting in less than 45 minutes from the time we ended our morning lift, we were told to shove some food down our gullets (for about the fifth time at this point on the trip).
After we were pleasantly plump on Pueblo food, we hurried down to the pool where this little talk would take place. So we all situated ourselves in a nice a semi circular fashion to watch Sean and his coworkers demonstrate how to use the scuba gear, and how to swim parallel to the surface of the water (because none of us know how to do that already). Oh did I mention that during this hour lecture Sean was constantly cracking corny jokes that nobody laughed at either because they were just too lame or because we were toast from that morning's workout.
Our unenthused reactions caused the scuba instructors to become concerned with our ability to function mentally and physically after practice so we were told not to do any strenuous exercise the morning before our dive. Oh dang, I guess that means we can't swim tomorrow morning. The rest of the afternoon consisted of lying on the beach and napping until afternoon practice, which ended up consisting of variations of sprint and distance stroke groups.
- Danielle Kerr (Gainesville, Fla.) '14
|
Swim teams at Flex Gym in St. Croix. |
Day 6
Today began at the pool a few of us went to do a small practice. Most of the team had gone scuba diving and got to miss practice; the reason for this being that the scuba instructors thought it was a safety hazard to have fifty dead-tired college students hanging out at the bottom of the ocean, which I suppose was a good idea. It didn't make those of us who wanted to go kayaking instead too happy, but practice was very casual and short and we soon departed for our kayaking trip.
Our instructor was Ty who hails from Idaho but has taken up residency on a boat docked in a St. Croix harbor. His dreadlocked, permanently tanned self soon had us all out in the ocean on kayaks, which was when the real excitement began.
Ty told us stories of government-invented pirates and hangover-less rum when we were suddenly surrounded by a school of yellow leopard sharks. Ty was pumped and told us that there was nothing to be worried about, all that you could lose was a finger or two, so we carried on to the more dangerous jellyfish infested waters. Here we ran into schools of jellyfish that you could hold in your bare hands. We all took turns holding the cauliflower look-a-likes, but carefully washed off our hands afterwards.
Ty then brought us to a beach that was only accessible via water, so we gallivanted around the place as aside from a few dogs and roosters we were the only living beings there. While coach Jenn spent her time tripping and falling over rocks in the ocean, (sorry, Jenn, but it was worthy of mention) the rest of us picked coconuts which Ty slashed open with the handy machete that he conveniently carries around. We drank the coconut water/milk, and then relied on coach Scott to break open the coconuts with his bare hands, which is no simple task, I might add, in order to eat the meat as well.
We carried on from there and went kayak surfing on the waves further out in the ocean as the scuba divers sailed by on return from their excursion with jealous glares on their faces. We called it a day after the surfing and headed back into the dock. Back at the condos we had hours of free time. I decided to nap and then go to the beach, but my nap took four hours so I skipped the beach.
Practice in the afternoon was split into groups; I was in sprint group with coach Jesup. We did six sets of four 50's descending to 100 pace, and then six more sets of four 50's working some sprinting and breath control, amongst other things. Each condo cooked their own dinner; luckily I have roommates who can cook as I lack that ability (or just the motivation), so we had an excellent chicken, rice, and salad dinner to close the day.
- Tera Levens (Palo Alto, Calif.) '14
Day 8
It dawned gloomy on our last full day on St. Croix as we hastily snatched breakfast and climbed onto the bus to the pool. There were speculations of IM and ladder sets swirling in our minds. Luckily, we were met with no test sets and finished a fairly solid split practice.
We passed our first rainy afternoon on the island quietly, mostly napping or reading on the condo balconies. A peaceful silence hung in the moist air during these precious hours between practices, and except for the gentle dripping of rain and soft lapping of waves, all was still.
Afternoon practice passed with little incident, and we clambered back into the bus in eager anticipation of dinner. Because we were leaving for the dorms of U. PR Mayaguez and therefore the luxury of having kitchens the next day, the men's and women's teams each elected to hold a potluck of leftover food. In an efficient ninety minutes that saw Erin Henn (Lawrenceville, N.J.) toting a saucepan of pasta larger than her head, we managed to ravage multiple pots of pasta, chicken and carbohydrates of all varieties.
After quick cleanups in our respective condos, we packed for Puerto Rico and went to bed in preparation for the day of travel ahead.
- Tina Ma (San Jose, Calif.) '14
Day 10
The day started off as any other with a long practice in the morning, but the pain of waking up at 6:40 was slightly diminished by it being our first full practice in the great swim facilities at Mayaguez. After practice we ate at the university food court, which only seemed to concentrate all their efforts on preparing desserts instead of actual breakfast food.
After breakfast, Jim informed us we had to lift in 45 minutes in the weight room that looked like it was straight out of a Rocky movie. Due to a lack of air conditioning, a number of male swimmers' shirts seemed to disappear into thin air. Since it was Scott's last day, everyone seemed to work extra hard.
After some naps, we were back in the pool at five for the dreaded 16x400 IM set. Although everyone was sore at the end of it felt like there was a weight lifted off our shoulders knowing there was only the 100x100s set left. After a dinner at the food court mall, everyone went to bed quickly to get ready for another long day of practice.
- Matt Long (Parker, Colo.) '14
Day 11
Everyone is getting used to the change from our condos in St. Croix to the swimming asylum we call UPR. To spice things up today at practice Jesup decided to start us off with some rhyming. It started with "I don't know what I've been told, Coach Jim is mighty old" and ended with Jesup making Monsters Inc references by demanding us to "hide under the bed "and have "scary feet" all at 7 am.
We then did a kick/swim descending set interestingly similar to a few other practices we have done on training trip. Everyone was still recovering from the IM set yesterday so everything today was a bit of a struggle. In between practices our extremely good looking team caught some sun at our concrete beach aka the diving well and put to use our insanely good diving skills at the 1, 3, 8, and 10 meter diving boards.
Afternoon practice started off strangely again with a few laps running around the pool but then proceeded as normal as we broke into groups for practice. For dinner, we hit up the mall food court and were lulled to sleep with the typical Mariachi band playing through our window.
- Meredith Sweeney (Hinsdale, Ill.) '14
Day 12
The day started off as any other: morning practice at the natatorium bright and early. A feeling in the pit of my stomach warned me of the dreadful set ahead. KOH. Mumblings were going around the team that today would be the day for this atrocity, since we did not have afternoon practice. The rumors were spot on. As soon as Jesup announced that it was "race day", we knew it was coming. About 45 minutes later, after many thoughts of running away or death, the second set of KOH was complete. Ice and Advil in hand, we headed back to the dorms to get ready to go on one of the coach's planned excursions.
This excursion involved spelunking in the Cavernas del Camuy, and then a short trip to see the Arecibo satellite, the largest satellite in the world. The trip started with an hour and a half bus ride to the caves in the party bus. Upon arrival at the caves we watched an informative video where we were reassured that the trolley we would ride to the caves is both fun and modern. The caves were really cool. The eeriest part was when we passed the bat chamber in the "labyrinth" and you could feel the heat of all their sleeping bodies, not to mention smell all the guano. Once the fun and modern trolley dropped us back off at the main entrance, everyone grabbed a snack and we were off to see the satellite dish.
The satellite was enormous! And it was very dirty, as Meredith was quick to point out. We took some team pics in front of the satellite and then the focus quickly turned to the snack bar. After we sold the stand out of hot dogs, it was time to go to dinner. The women's team ate at Chilli's, while the men's team had their traditional eating contest at Ponderosa. Christine Kerr (Gainesville, Fla.) had cleaned her plate by the time most of the other girls had picked up their forks. Well done Kerr. Coldstone was the next stop and then it was back on the party bus that was bumpin with some local Puerto Rican jams.
Mae was quick to get the party started with some dance moves. A couple hours later we were back at the palace.
- Mary Van Metre (Edina, Minn.) '14
| Teams at Arecibo astronomy observatory, which is the biggest satallite station in the world. |
Day 13
The time left on training trip may be winding down, but the training aspect has definitely not let up. After taking yesterday's afternoon practice off to explore caves as well as the world's largest satellite dish, it was back to full force in the pool this morning. After our Puerto Rican "Island Warm-Up" we split into groups, with the sprinters exploring the short course meters pool for the first time during the trip. Also a first was the rain we experienced during practice. While it was perhaps fun watching the coaches get rained on as we did work in the pool, it was not fun making the half-mile trek to the cafeteria...
After morning practice in the pool and breakfast, it was off to the weight room for our last lifting session of the trip. Even without Scott being there to coach and oversee, I think we did an excellent job of getting our swell on.
After naptime it was back to the pool for afternoon practice. We began with an extended warm-up, and then the team got ready to race a few fast 100's with choice of stroke. Halfway through the set, we found out that today's practice was also "Class Appreciation Practice". Freshmen watched with envy as seniors finished after three 100s, juniors after four 100s, and so on.
We finished up the practice with an intense relay in which freshmen women destroyed the men's team... that's what's up girls!
After a questionable meal at the school cafeteria we headed back to the dorms at which time the freshmen women performed a dance to Enrique Iglesias's "Escape". We looked pretty fly in our training trip tanks, high shorts, sneakers and high ponytails. Afterwards the women's team stuck around for a White Elephant gift exchange with gifts ranging from candy to a dart gun, cat bed, set of sparkle tattoos and an Elmo stocking. Following the gift exchange, most of the women's team got some classy temporary tattoos.
Now it's off to bed before the last full day of practice!
- Natalia Vecerek (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.) '14
Trip Recap
Fist pumps and cheers were shared by all at the completion of hundred hundreds, however going home definitely leaves some mixed feelings. It was a great trip, full of ups and downs (mostly just downs for the bus) and some great opportunities. We got to scuba dive, snorkel, "splunk" and visit the biggest radio satellite in the world (yes Kate O'Brien (RSM, Calif.), that massive plate in the ground was a satellite). A Sadie Hawkins dinner in St. Croix and some close living quarters in Puerto Rico really brought the team together. We got some island flavor in with a Christmas boat show, tales of Mercedes O'Reily and an authentic Puerto Rican Christmas dinner.
We also got plenty of the coach's flavor with the ladder set, the IM set, 100x 100's and KOH. By the end of training trip, DMWSD was looking fit and tan and is definitely a force to be reckoned with (watch out Penn). We may have needed massage trains and bottles of Advils, but by the end of the two weeks most swimmers were feeling in the best shape of their life! (or at least since last training trip) I don't know that any of us are going to miss the weight room at UPR or the dreaded test sets, but heading back to the cold (for most of us) seemed daunting. Once again, with sore arms and heavy eyelids, Dartmouth Swimming and Diving takes over the San Juan aeropuerto, this time ready to head home and do work on our break challenge!
- Erin Henn (Lawrenceville, N.J.) '14
Training Trip Poem
I'm writing in this fashion as a means to convey
Events that took place on training trip's last day
Because Jesup's annual poem was left unsaid
I couldn't help but write one instead
The alarms woke us up 4:15 on the dime
Take that loud garbage truck, you're too late this time
The trudge to the pool was filled with silence and dread
As we thought of the looming set which lay ahead
Training trip's final day would be a defeat
If 100 x 100's were left incomplete
An abundance of options was presented before me
Oh my four intervals this year, not three
It sounded tough but I had a plan of attack
I would strategically go last and draft of Danielle and Jack
Not to worry we switched positions to relieve the pain
Not pulling my teammates along would have been a crime to my lane
The set was quite dandy I wouldn't mind it again
Except for the fact that hunger struck my belly at around number ten
The joy of eating the delicious dining hall food went swimming through my mind
The coaches allotted 45 minutes for breakfast- they're just too kind
Food in my stomach after 10,000 meters had such an appeal
Oh boy I was so excited for some corn nuggets and rice oatmeal
I was rather surprised by the line of people I could see
This place was supposed to open at 7 and it was 7:15
Helpless hungry swimmers and students stared through the locked door
As we quickly learned a robber left the cafeteria with food no more
I was so hungry I almost felt sick
A perfect solution presented itself- a snickers bar would do the trick
We headed back to the dorms for a last clean and pack
We loaded the buses and home was where we were headed back
We got to the airport and said our last goodbyes
I can't believe training trip is over, man how time flies
Although headed in different directions our fitness we must maintain
Losing all that hard work would be such a shame
Broken up into teams by class we must compete
To see who has the determination to win this feat
Jesup's challenge forces us to work and not sit
Come on 14's we can do this, bring it!
As I write this on my plane ride home going rather steady
I realized it's only been 4 hours and I miss my teammates already
It's only 10 days apart, have nothing to fear
We will be reunited once more at the start of next year!
- Christine Kerr (Gainesville, Fla.) '14
Players Mentioned
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Free/IM
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Free/Fly
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Free/Fly
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Breast
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Diving
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Free
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Free/Back
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Backstroke
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